Sweet By and By (Johnson)

The Sweet By and By
Todd Johnson, 2009
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061579516

Summary
I want you to know something if you don't already. Life is choosing whom and what you love. Everything else follows...

Among the longleaf pines and family farms of eastern North Carolina, days seem to pass without incident for Margaret Clayton and Bernice Stokes until they discover each other in a friendship that will take them on the most important journey of their lives. Margaret, droll and whip smart, has a will of iron that never fails her even when her body does, while Bernice, an avid country-music fan, is rarely lucid.

Irreverent and brazen at every turn, they make a formidable pair at the home where they live, breaking all the rules and ultimately changing the lives of those around them. Lorraine, their churchgoing, God-questioning nurse, both protects and provokes them while they are under her watchful eye, as her daughter, April, bright and ambitious, determinedly makes her way through medical school. Rounding out the group of unlikely and often outrageous friends is Rhonda, the Bud-swilling beautician who does the ladies' hair on her day off and whose sassy talk hides a vulnerable heart, one that finally opens to love.

Weaving this tightly knit and compelling novel in alternating chapters, each woman gets to tell her story her own way, as all five learn to reconcile troubled pasts, find forgiveness, choose hope, and relish the joy of life. Rich with irresistible characters whose uniquely musical voices overflow the pages, The Sweet By and By is a testament to the truth that the most vibrant lives are not necessarily the most visible ones. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Reared—Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; M.A., Yale
   Divinity School
• Currently—Litchfield County, Connecticut

Todd Johnson grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, the great-grandson of a rural Baptist preacher. After graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with honors in history and receiving his master's degree from Yale Divinity School, Todd moved to New York City to pursue a career as a musician. Armed with a handful of demo reels, he made the rounds, knocking on the doors of advertising music producers. A few weeks later, he sang his first national commercial and went on to sing and arrange countless jingles for television and radio. He has also performed with a long roster of major artists, including Garth Brooks, Celine Dion, Tony Bennett, Marc Anthony, Barry Manilow, Al Jarreau, Michael Bolton, Sarah Brightman and Natalie Cole.

After singing the praises of cleaning products, cars, airlines, beverages, and even toilet paper, Todd decided to give himself to his longstanding passion for theatre. In 2006, he received a Tony Award nomination as a producer of The Color Purple on Broadway.

A longtime resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Todd recently moved to a 250-year-old house in Litchfield County, Connecticut, where it has come in very handy that he’s an Eagle Scout. When he’s not working on his next book, he rides horses and tries to keep the garden under control. (From the author's website.)

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Book Reviews
Packed with so much poignancy readers might want to keep tissues handy.... This novel carries in it lessons of family, friends, kindness, generosity and love...heartfelt.... [Johnson] realistically portrays the challenges the elderly face and captures the authentic voices of these five very different women. This is a novel not to be missed.
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Give Todd Johnson an "A." He made me laugh and cry. Johnson's...five women...are as convincing as Reynolds Price's Kate Vaiden and Allan Gurganus' Lucy Marsden. From the first page they step into your life and start talking pure Southern music.
Raleigh News & Observer

Gentle, sensitive...sometimes funny, occasionally sad, and ultimately life-affirming. Johnson has done an admirable job of making each woman distinct and memorable. The reader will have a clear picture of each in mind-and will feel fond of them..a fine debut. I look forward to seeing what Johnson writes next.
Winston-Salem Journal

This debut novel eloquently tells the story of five North Carolina women, and it is quite simply one of the most beautifully written books you'll ever read. The story plays like music in the heart. Descriptions promise a laugh. Beautifully crafted dialogue brings a quick catch in the throat. Strength fills this book, while reinforcing the love and respect Southerners hold for their mothers, grandmothers, friends, and daughters. Packed with so much poignancy readers might want to keep tissues handy...this novel carries in it lessons of family, friends, kindness, generosity and love...heartfelt... [Johnson] realistically portrays the challenges the elderly face and captures the authentic voices of these five very different women. This is a novel not to be missed.
Southern Living

Read The Sweet By and By. In his debut novel, Todd Johnson explores the lives of five Southern women who are unexpectedly connected to each other. While most of the action takes place in a nursing home, their stories never fall short of livelihood. Think of it as Steel Magnolias meets The Golden Girls.
Real Simple

Johnson's bittersweet and often humorous hen-lit debut portrays the lives of five very different Southern women: compassionate Lorraine, bossy Margaret, grief-stricken Bernice, ambitious April and brusque Rhonda. At the center of this character-driven novel is Lorraine, a nurse at the nursing home where Margaret and Bernice live. As the three women drift into friendship, hairdresser Rhonda arrives to take a part-time job, and the older women begin to change her life. Lorraine's daughter, April, meanwhile, is also gradually drawn into the circle. The story unfolds slowly over decades and life milestones, giving the characters plenty of time to reveal themselves. Johnson has a sure ear for Southern speech, though the dialect can become tiresome, and the narrative's lack of plot makes the novel feel overlong. Nevertheless, the underlying message of the power of love and friendship resonates, as does its depiction of the way in which people leading unremarkable lives can have a tremendous impact on those around them.
Publishers Weekly

You may feel like your Southern ladies lit shelf is crammed, but you'll want to save a place for this debut novel—essentially a hymn of praise for licensed practical nurses (LPNs). Set in an eastern North Carolina nursing home, the book follows Lorraine, an African American nurse; her daughter, April; Margaret and Bernice, elderly white patients; and Rhonda, a younger, white hairdresser who comes on Sundays. Moving back and forth in time, Johnson does a fine job of illustrating the rich inner lives of those imprisoned by failing mental or physical health. Although not without its flaws, the novel moves beyond stereotypes as Lorraine lives in loving service to those unable to do for themselves. Like so many Southern novels, strong women predominate, and good men seem scarce. One may wish to know more about Rhonda's and April's lives, but the irrepressible Bernice and her obsessive antics over a prized stuffed monkey compensate. Even with the conundrum of an abundance of good fiction and limited budgets, novels about everyday people like Lorraine are in short supply. Strongly recommended for popular and Southern fiction collections.
Rebecca Kelm - Library Journal

Two nursing-home residents inspire their hairdresser and caregiver, in Broadway producer (The Color Purple) Johnson's often preachy first novel. Lorraine, an African-American practical nurse, suppresses traumatic memories of an abusive husband and the crib death of her firstborn by concentrating on creating a semblance of normalcy for her charges at Ridgecrest, a North Carolina nursing home. Lorraine's favorites are Margaret, who is struggling to maintain her faculties in this dementia-conducive setting, and Bernice, frankly and unapologetically gaga, accompanied always by her monkey doll, Mister Benny. Rhonda, painfully conscious of her poor white origins, does hair at Ridgecrest once a week, and, spurred on by Margaret, Lorraine and Bernice, gradually gains self-acceptance. April, Lorraine's daughter, has become a doctor, making her mother proud. The present arc takes us through various occasions at the nursing home—Christmas, Mother's Day, Fourth of July, etc.—where we see in action the ambivalence and anger of Margaret and Bernice toward the middle-aged children who have consigned them to Ridgecrest. In a scene that fails to deliver its tragicomic intent, Benny meets his end when he's tossed on a barbecue grill by a crotchety geezer. There's the obligatory escape sequence, wherein Margaret and Bernice slip out the back door at night and head for a local ice-cream parlor, then to Raleigh, where they spend the night in a hotel. After the adventure proves too much for Bernice (she passes away in her sleep in the hotel room), the story loses whatever impetus it had. Letters left behind, written by Bernice to her beloved younger son Wade after his death in a car crash, convincingly if anticlimactically document her descent into madness. Extended meditations by the surviving principals (except Margaret, who thankfully retains her refreshing cynicism) on the Big Questions make for a predictable and lifeless denouement. Earnest, and funny in spots, but it too often sacrifices depth for wisecracks and original insights for cliches.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
1. The Sweet By and By is told through the first-person perspectives of five women. Aside from the chapter titles, how does the author keep each of these voices distinct and immediately recognizable? What does each unique woman bring to the story?

2. From Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July to Margaret and Bernice’s escape to the Tastee Freez, holidays and food are powerful motifs in The Sweet By and By. What function do these motifs play in the story?

3. In Chapter Twenty-Six, April claims there are only two unforgivable sins: sickness and aging. Why do you think she says this? Do you think this statement is true to the novel?

4. Several of Lorraine's chapters take place in church. How does Lorraine understand the role of God in her life, and does that change over the course of the novel?

5. What does the title The Sweet By and By allude to? What do you feel it means in relationship to your own life?

6. In Chapter Thirty-Five, April and her mother learn the difference between “apparent” and “absolute magnitudes” of stars. What does this distinction symbolize? How do the five main characters’ perspectives of themselves confirm or conflict with the other characters’ depictions of them?

7. The Sweet By and By covers many years, often with only subtle indications that significant time has passed. What details does the author employ to implicitly convey the passage of time? Do different parts of the novel move more quickly than others, and if so, how can you tell?

8. What role does race play in the novel? Why do you think the author waits before revealing Margaret’s race?

9. In Chapter Twenty-Four, Lorraine, Margaret, and Rhonda read Bernice Stokes’s letters to her deceased son. Lorraine says, “Don’t think she didn’t know, honey. There’s ways of knowing that we don’t know nothing about.” What do you think Lorraine means here?

10. Why does Margaret insist on naming Bernice’s second stuffed animal?

11. Are Margaret and Bernice’s escape related to Bernice’s death? Why or why not?

12. Why does Lorraine wait so long to tell April about her brother?

13. The novel is filled with uncharacteristic representations of age. In Chapter Twenty-Two, Rhonda recounts how as a child her grandmother threw away her dolls and told her, “You’re grown up now.... Let the past be in the past!” A page later, she washes “Mister Benny’s” hair for an aging Bernice Stokes. In one of the novel’s final scenes, April takes her aging mother to the planetarium. Can you think of other passages like this? What does The Sweet By and By tell us about childhood, adulthood, and aging?
(Questions from the author's website.)

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